Suffragist, clubwoman and officer of the New Jersey League of Women Voters (later known as the League of Women Voters of New Jersey); born in Colorado in the late 1870s; grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska; was graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1901; married journalist Leonard H. Robbins (b. 1877) in 1901 and soon thereafter moved to Newark, Essex County, New Jersey; subsequently moved to Montclair, Essex County, where the couple raised two children; participated in several women's organizations before the early 1920s, including the Women's Political Union of New Jersey (as a board member?), the Newark club known as the Contemporary (as president, 1917-1919) and the College Women's Club of Essex County (also as president); served as chairperson of legislation, 1925-1928, for the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs and worked actively on a variety of issues such as child labor reform, adoption of eugenic sterilization, establishment of a federal department of education and the United States' entry into the World Court; served as secretary, 1927-1932, of the New Jersey Committee of the Woman's National Committee for Law Enforcement, which worked to ensure that laws relating to Prohibition were enforced; was appointed in 1928 to serve (as the only woman) on a commission to examine the relationship between Rutgers University and the state of New Jersey; served as vice president, 1930-1935, as president, 1935-1942, and then as director of national legislation of the New Jersey League of Women Voters which, during her years in office, assumed a leadership role in the movement to revise the state constitution, worked to reduce political patronage and lobbied for increased use of voting machines; attended the Woman's Centennial Congress held in New York City in 1940 as a delegate from New Jersey; served as chairperson, economic and legal status of women, 1943-1945, of the New Jersey Division of the American Association of University Women; died in 1945.
From the description of Lena Anthony Robbins papers, 1917-1945. (Rutgers University). WorldCat record id: 62320690
